Andrew Gilliam and his friend Stephen took Slacktory’s YouTube Challenge and watched a ten-hour video of a stick figure screaming “Boom! Headshot!” With only one bathroom break during the whole marathon, they had to cope by talking to each other. And still the video drove them a little crazy. Andrew describes the experience below.

I do guarantee that this is 100% legit. No sound dub, one shot, and only a two minute (approximately) break for me to pee. When we recorded, we did not do a test in the beginning so we were unaware that the audience would not be able to hear us.

As far as what we thought, we actually kept status updates documented (below).

90-second version:

10-hour version (with one cut to fit in YouTube’s time limit):

Stephen’s input on what he felt after the past ten hours: “Partially dazed, slight amusement, fear of videos for the first five hours after waking up the next day. I had already wanted to do it for the lolz with out even being aware of the competition.”

My thoughts were a little bit unorganized and it tended to be a bit difficult to comprehend what we had just done. My reasoning for picking Stephen as my video viewing partner was, I knew that I would’ve had to have someone to keep me sane the entire time. He was also the only one that I had talked to that even JOKED about doing it. So my choices were set. I do remember thinking that even if it wasn’t for the $100, it would definitely be for the serious lolz in the future and to show the sheer balls of what we can do.

It definitely wasn’t easy and I was genuinely concerned for my mental health at one point. I also now consider: “Boom! Headshot!” to be a personal insult. The first thing that happened after Stephen had left, my other friend hopped on Skype and played “BOOM HEADSHOT!” through the speakers. I proceeded to yell into the microphone and end the call. Overall, it was a great experience.

The live notes

Taking the ten hour Youtube video challenge. Currently one hour and twenty three minutes in.

Status Update #1. Andrew: “Having failed the first attempt at twenty four minutes and being forced to clear our progress and start over, I’m getting the assumption that this isn’t so bad being nearly an hour and thirty minutes. However, I think the first sign of dementia is setting in because I’m actually starting to enjoy it.”

Status Update #2. Stephen: “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK… The end is in sight, but far, far away, like the Star Wars galaxy. Hearing all of this BOOM HEADSHOT, I’m worrying that psychotic tendencies will emerge.”

Status Update #3. Andrew: “Almost two hours in. This torture seems to be decreasing little by little. Splitting the cash with a friend that is enduring just as much torture as I, unfortunately, means just two dollars short of minimum wage.

I’m just going to have to debate if I am going to spend my half on psychiatric help, a new camera to record a ten hour long video of me watching a ten hour long video, or get this External HDD repaired.”

Status Update #4. Stephen: “Are we still doing the three hour thing? Where we sing along with the video for an hour? I don’t even care anymore… God, I just want it to end already! In any case, if we do make a documentary of this video, next time we’re doing it in the daytime.” 01:58:17

Status Update #5. Andrew: “Daytime? Fuck daytime. Nearly the entirety of doing this video at night was because we had nothing else better to do. Had we had something better to do, this spectacular event would have never happened. I’m wondering if we can literally go insane from this. Dear Internet, fuck you. 2:01:18″

Status Update #6. Stephen: “At the five hour mark, it’s all downhill. Also, for those of you reading this now, if you play the entire video backward, we sacrifice a live goat to Satan on the hour, every hour. Pwning you nubs, lol.

This is like writing a storyline for the movie during the recording of the movie. The Amazing Atheist was right, this video-making stuff is frustrating as hell.. and we’re not even doing anything creative…” 02:09:15

Status Update #7. Stephen: “Evolution of sound: BOOM, HEADSHOT, to BOOM, EGGSHOT, to BOOM, LEGSHOT, to FOOM, EGGSHOT, to FOOL, EGGSHOT, to BULL, EGGSHOT, to FOR-MA-TION to HO-LY SHIT. The most interesting part of this video is experiencing yourself being high off of this video.” 02:54:18

Status Update #8. Andrew: “Once we get to 03:33:33, we’ll officially be 1/3rd of the way done.” 03:22:12

Status Update #9. Stephen: “Ears have begun decieving us. We have both experienced sounds that are clearly NOT part of the video (we hope). But we are in this to the end, come Hell or high water. (GODS, I hope not. Well,whatever. At this point any change from BOOM, HEADSHOT (FOR-MA-TION’s first appearance) is welcome and ecstatically embraced.)” 03:50:54

Status Update #10. Andrew: “It’s not even a song anymore… It’s become a part of us!” 04:21:14

Status Update #11. Stephen: “Insanity… has been conquered. For the time being, anyway. It’s making a new noise, HO-LY SHIT and that’s comforting because at least our brains are still capable of processing the information. Having trouble staying awake (Just me, Stephen. I’m a sleep-deprivation virgin, lol.)” 05:21:30

Status Update #13.Andrew: “05:37:25 Stephen and I have very well noticed that it seems as if we can control whatever we want to hear out of this piece of shit mother fucking Goddamn video. We can literally hear “Boom Headshot” To “Ho-ly Shit” To “Fool, Eggshot.” I do believe insanity has been conquered. But I can’t believe that this program is still recording after five and a half hours. Stephen’s a little bit sleep deprived. And is definitely not used to staying up during the late hours. Me, Andrew, I’m fine. I’m used to these long hour no sleep marathons. I’ve seriously been up for a week straight before. The sleep is not a problem for me. I can literally go for days. But, just this repetitive sound is what’s gotten me a little, uhhh… Off? Mentally anyways. 05:42:42″

Status Update #14. Stephen: “Animals have started congregating at the edges of the room, howling for respite from what must be, to them, relentless utter nonsense. For us, of course, it’s relentless BOOM, HEADSHOT or FOOL, EGGSHOT, or whatever else. Interestingly enough, we probably would’nt’ve made it this far without each other, me without the late hour help and Andrew without the company. ‘Cause nobody would ever go crazy alone, it’s too fucking boring, lol.” 05:48:43

Status Update #15. Andrew: “Good ass coffee. Anyways, to be completely honest, I’m going to have to say that it’s definitely much easier after the first half. Ten minutes away from the six hour mark and this is one continuous shot, nonetheless. 100% legit. I’ll also be honest about something else, I’m not going to lie about it crossing my mind to dub in the audio after recording ourselves sitting there doing nothing. Because it did. It was actually considered. But, I came to realization that it wasn’t just for the money. Mainly because $100 isn’t that much. However, I kind of wanted it to be an experience, a memory, an “Omfg, do you remember when we…” That kind of thing. So. Ha.” 05:51:21

Status Update #16. Stephen: “These Status Updates are the only thing keeping me going. Seriously, just in the act of writing this I can feel my brain fighting away insanity and a little bit of… dare I say it… Nope, I won’t say it. But you get the idea, I’m staying sane. So there’s that.” 05:56:10

Status Update #17. Andrew: “These Status Updates are seriously going to be documented and looked back on with pure anguish. But I think it’ll be worth. This video is definitely torture, though. I’ll give it that.” 05:57:42

Status Update #20. Stephen: “So how are we going to end this. Good question. Ending statements in the last < five minutes, I say, and then like, the last five seconds of the video we hit replay and hear one repetition of BOOM HEADSHOT before stopping the vid. Hopefully, since we started the music approximately 5 seconds after we started recording, it’ll still be under the 10:00:59 mark for youtube upload.” 06:35:34

Status Update #23. Stephen: “‘Boom Headshot.’ It’s annoying. It’s repetitive. It’s probably not a good battle cry. But nonetheless, for those of us willing to suffer through eight hours and sixteen minutes of it, it represents crossing the line between childhood and the rest of our lives. Not really. It’s gay as hell. … There really isn’t that much more to say about that.

In other news, It’s morning now. We have lasted the night at least, and the goddamn video better save, lol, or else.” 08:20:24

Status Update #24. Andrew: “Last Goddamn hour. Can you believe it? Because I can’t. I’m in terrible pain and I never thought this was going to be so fucking shitty. But it is. Just fifty four more minutes of this bullshit. I think I can do it.” 09:06:17